Herzog Meets Lithuanian President In Riga

President Herzog met today (Tuesday) with Lithuanian President Edgars Rinkēvičs as part of a diplomatic tour of the Baltic states.

While there, Herzog addressed the war from his perspective, saying that "Right now, the Palestinian people are torn between two entities. One is controlled by the Palestinian Authority, and one is by Hamas. And if you ask an Israeli, an average Israeli, whether they believe it’s feasible to get to a two-state solution, a solution with a peaceful neighbor like I crossed the border today from Lithuania to Latvia easily – the answer will be no. Because following October 7, it was a wake-up call for many Israelis. This was a peaceful border which was shattered by a brutal terrorist organization which abducted, killed, burned and raped our people, innocent civilians. and took hostages. So how do I get to the next day, the day after?"

He thus argued that "In order to get to the day after, in order to finish the tragedy in Gaza, the terrible tragedy in Gaza, which was imposed only by Hamas, one has to get the hostages back home. Because we are dealing with a jihadist terror regime in Gaza, which we are trying to remove in order to release our hostages and make sure that our citizens on the border live in peace, we have to get the hostages back."

Herzog also addressed the allegations of deliberate starvation in Gaza: "Nonetheless, Israel has dramatically improved, in the last 10 days, the humanitarian situation in Gaza, with at least 23,000 tons of aid delivered, and in just the last 24 hours, another 30 tons of aid. Plus about 120 airdrops in the last 24 hours by countries from all over the world. There’s been a major overhaul of the supply of water and electricity, and this while our hostages are starved and in a very, very dire situation."